


blue lips, blue veins (blue, the color of our planet from far, far away)

by AceSailorKoshkaRayn



Series: if you ever, ever feel like you're nothing (you're fuckin' perfect to me) [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU of an AU, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, On-screen character death, Suicidal Ideation, clone!shiro, every single one of you is probably going to hate me, everything is terrible and sad but then it's better, hello my lovely and beautiful people, i promise!!!!, not-quite graphic depictions of violence, this is based off chapter 6 of (i can say i've really loved)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 22:03:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18747985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceSailorKoshkaRayn/pseuds/AceSailorKoshkaRayn
Summary: "Lance, baby, please, stay with me, okay, you gotta- you gotta stay, please! Please don't leave me alone, please, please!"But he was already gone, eyes -blue, so blue, like the ocean, like summer sky, like delighted laughter and lingering kisses and warm hands on sore muscles- gone dull and dark with death."No, no, no!"Alternate universe to previous stories.further warnings in beginning notes





	blue lips, blue veins (blue, the color of our planet from far, far away)

**Author's Note:**

> If it says anything, I wrote the entirety of this at two in the morning on my phone while sniffling the entire time.  
> On-screen major character death, violence, anger, depictions of grief. I'm not gonna sugar-coat it, after a while, Keith just straight-up wants to die. Sorry.  
> If you think I've missed anything, please for the love of fuck tell me, yeah?  
> I'll provide a note in the story where Ch6 of (i can say i've really loved) picks up, btw.

"Hey, Lance."

The young man in question half-startled, turning away from the viewport. "Oh, hey Shiro. What's up?"

Shiro shrugged, coming to stand nearby. "Not much, to be honest. You seen Keith around anywhere?"

"No, not recently," Lance shrugged, taking a sip of his kind-of space hot cocoa. If he ignored the nearly fluorescent pink color, it was okay. "Last I saw he was on the training deck."

"Oh, good," Shiro said, and Lance hummed, confused, glancing at him- and then his hand was buried wrist-deep in Lance's chest.

His mug tumbled from numb fingers, mouth immediately filling with the taste of blood.

Shiro pulled his hand back, stepping away as Lance tumbled to his knees.

"Sh-Shiro," Lance wheezed, clutching desperately to the hole in his chest. "Shiro, what…?"

"I was told to destroy you from the inside," Shiro said dispassionately, flicking the blood from his fingers. "I figured, might as well start with the weakest link." He strode away, leaving Lance gasping on the floor in a puddle of his own blood.

 

_ Keith, shit, I gotta tell him- _

In the training room, Keith went so, so still. His heart jumped up to his throat even as something deep in him went still and cold.

"No," he breathed, dodging a blow from a training gladiator and rocketing from the room as fast as he could go.

He could- he could feel it, the bond, growing weak, spreading thin, dripping like from a suddenly-punctured hole in the bottom of a jug.

"No!" he shrieked, halfway to hysterical, as he slid to his knees beside Lance's prone form. "No, no, Lance, baby, Lance, don't do this to me, Lance," he begged desperately, searching for a place to touch him that wasn't soaked through with blood.

Lance's chest barely rose and fell, gurgling wetly.

"Lance, babe, please," Keith pleaded, touching his face. "Please, c'mon, please-"

"Keithhhh," Lance whispered, dragging a clumsy hand up to grip into the front of his shirt. "Shi...ro…"

"Shi- get Shiro?" Keith yelped, one hand clutching at Lance's face, the other to the wrist clinging to his shirt.

"Shiro...not our Shiro," Lance breathed, blinking blurry eyes. "He's...under someone's...control."

_ Shiro _ did this? Keith hiccupped in confusion, clutching at Lance harder as he seemed to slump, message delivered. "Lance, baby, please, stay with me, okay, you gotta- you gotta stay, please! Please don't leave me alone, please,  _ please! _ "

But he was already gone, eyes -blue, so blue, like the ocean, like summer sky, like delighted laughter and lingering kisses and warm hands on sore muscles- gone dull and dark with death.

"No, no,  _ no! _ " Keith screamed, voice breaking in on itself. He collapsed, head resting on Lance's chest, fingers clenched tightly in his shirt. He sobbed, brokenly, weakly, whole body shuddering with it. That warm little spot deep in his chest, that had been with him for so long he'd forgotten to think about it, was gone. Quiet. He'd never hear it again.

Keith tipped his head back and screamed, a primal, feral thing, ripped from his chest.

He took a deep breath and screamed again, before climbing slowly to his feet.

Pounding footsteps from down the hall alerted him that someone had heard, someone was coming.

That someone was Hunk, jolting to a halt so suddenly at the sight of him that he almost fell over.

"Holy fucking christ," Hunk blurted, and it seemed to be ripped from him. He blanched. "Jesus, Keith, did you fucking  _ kill _ someone?"

"No," Keith snarled, bayard forming in his hand. "But I'm fucking about to. Where's Shiro?"

"I, uh, haven't seen him in a while," Hunk admitted, edging back. "Keith, buddy, uh, maybe you should take a moment to...cool off? What the hell did you even do? Is that  _ your _ blood?"

"No," Keith hissed, an answer to all those questions. "He needs to be stopped. Don't get in my way." He marched down the hallway, following the trail of dripped blood, until a piercing shriek rent the air.

At that, both he and Hunk took off at a frantic pace, rocketing around a corner and into what Pidge had claimed as her study space.

Keith used his momentum to launch himself at the  _ bastard _ he had once called brother, had once called kin, causing him to drop Pidge from where he had her held up by the throat.

"Ah, you found him then," not-Shiro said, dodging the next slash with an easy smirk. "I forgot to calculate that you were his soulmate into the equation. Tell me, could you feel his last breaths? Did you hear his dying thoughts?"

Keith screamed, mind greying out into haze. All form was gone, thrown out the window in favour of destroying this man as quickly as possible.

Behind him, Hunk was helping Pidge to her feet, checking over the burns on her throat. "What the hell  _ happened _ ?" he asked incredulously, when he had determined she wasn't severely injured.

Pidge swallowed a few times, watching Keith chase Shiro around the room, landing blow after blow, but none of them seemed to impact him. "I don't...I don't  _ know _ ," she murmured, voice raspy. "He asked how I was doing, if I'd seen Coran, and then...he just attacked me. I don't...I don't understand."

"We need to go get Allura-" Hunk began, but the princess strode into the room herself, doubtless having been drawn by the screams.

"What on  _ Altea _ is going on here?" she demanded angrily, hands fisted tightly at her sides.

"Shiro tried to kill Pidge," Hunk supplied.

" _ What _ ?" Allura asked incredulously, staring between Shiro and Pidge. She eyed the deepening bruises around the girl's throat, and her gaze darkened.

"Allow me, Princess," Coran said softly, sidling into the room behind her. His eyes were wet with recently shed tears, and a smear of red was on one cheek.

He must have gone into the room Keith had come out of, Hunk thought. And then, aloud, asked, "Where...is Lance?"

Coran's expression shuttered completely, nothing showing on his face. "I am...so sorry, my boy," he said, before he drew a wickedly curved knife from his belt and leapt into the fray.

That was not an answer.

Hunk felt something inside him break a little, because even his non-answer had been good enough.

Coran cut a deep slash up from Shiro's cheek across his eye, making him stumble.

Keith, from behind, brought his sword down above the join of the Galra arm, removing the most dangerous part of the equation in one fell swoop.

Shiro slammed to the ground with the motion of the swing, blood pouring from his missing arm. He groaned, weakly, scrabbling against the ground with his free hand.

Raising his sword, Keith moved to drive it through Shiro's face, but Coran caught him before he could complete the swing, dragging him into a bone-creakingly tight hug.

"C-Coran," Keith blinked, only kind of coming back to himself. He saw Shiro on the ground, breath whistling through his teeth, and began struggling anew. "Coran, let me go! Let me  _ go! _ I have to- he k-ki- he killed-" his voice broke, and he tipped his head back to release a piercing, keening howl.

Hunk walked up to Shiro himself, leaning over him.

"Come to finish the job?" Shiro asked weakly, grinning up him through blood-stained teeth. "We know you and the Blue Paladin were close. Almost like brothers." His breath whistled through his broken nose, one eye completely blinded and dribbling blood down the side of his face.

"No," Hunk said, and was surprised at himself by how calm he sounded. "I'm here to punch your fucking lights out, then Pidge it gonna tie you up, and we're gonna make you wish you  _ had _ died."

Shiro only got half a laugh out before Hunk was rearing back and delivering a blow so harsh his skull bounced against the metal floor.

~/\~

Keith wasn't aware how long he drifted in a daze -could have been days, could have been weeks- still always listening for that quiet little voice in the back of his head. He knew, somewhere, that he would never hear it again, but he refused to believe, really.

When he slept, it was wrapped in Lance's jacket, tucked away in some small dark corner where no one would notice and no one would accidentally run into him.

Somewhere he knew the others were worried about him, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He couldn't bring himself to feel...anything, not anymore.

 

"He always had the dumbest jokes," Pidge said softly, picking at the cover for one of the stupid couch cushions. "I miss them, though."

"He's -he'd always been like that," Hunk told her, voice gentle.

In the crevice between an armchair and a wall, Keith stiffened. He ducked his face into his knees, fingers clenching and unclenching in the fabric of Lance's jacket.

"I miss his singing, too," Pidge added after a moment. "Especially when he thought no one was listening."

"Yeah," Hunk agreed, sounding wet. "When we were at the Garrison, when I'd had a rough day, he used to sing to me. Sometimes just little nonsense songs, about what he was doing, about the weather, about the crappy cafeteria food -but it always made me feel better."

"That definitely sounds like him," Pidge said, giving a weak, damp chuckle. "He was always good at that…"

Behind the chair, Keith felt something building in his chest -a scream, a sob, he didn't know, but he bit it down, and down, and down, until it lit like a burning fire in his stomach.

 

"Oh, Keith!" Hunk said, half-standing. "It's- I'm glad to see you, dude. You want some food?"

"I'm going to burn that druid  _ bitch _ from the inside out," Keith told him seriously, dropping heavily into a seat at the table.

"...Seems like a good plan," Hunk agreed after a moment, standing and moving to put some of the goo into a bowl. He pushed it in front of Keith, resuming his own seat. "Any particular plan on how to go about that? Rushing in headlong seems like a- well, it seems like a bad idea."

"That's why I came to you," Keith said. "You're much better at plans than I am."

Hunk blinked at him, before shrugging. "Well, okay. Do your Blade of Marmora guys have any leads on where she might be hiding?"

"They've got...some rumors," Keith said slowly, frowning at his food goo. "I've been...a bit out of touch, for a while."

~/\~

Kolivan seemed shocked to see him.

Keith stared at him, hard-edged. "What?" he growled, unable to help himself.

"I...we had heard that your mate had passed," Kolivan told him, carefully. "I was not expecting to see you for...quite some time."

"He didn't  _ pass _ , he was  _ murdered _ ," Keith bit out, fingers gripping the edge of the computer panel so hard he could feel it warping. "And I'm going to  _ destroy _ the bitch who did it."

"Ah," Kolivan said succinctly, as if that explained everything. Hell, maybe it did, to a Galra. "What did you have in mind?"

~/\~

Swinging his Marmoran blade through Hagar's neck was one of the most satisfying experiences of Keith's life.

He stared down at her for a long, long moment, several guards picking their way closer through the corpses of their comrades. He tipped his head back and howled, a cry of victory, a cry of anguish.

It had taken months of preparation, months of work, and now he was here, and done, and now- now what was left? Everything was gone. He had nothing left to do.

The guards all paused, frozen in place. That- scream, that horrific scream, how was he even still  _ alive _ -?

"Come, kit," Kolivan himself said, scooping Keith up into his grasp. "Time to go back."

Keith nodded mutely, staring at the blade gripped tightly in his hands like it was his only lifeline.

 

"What's wrong with him?" Pidge asked softly, glancing between the medical Galra and Keith, lying prone on his side in the ward. "He seemed to be doing so much better, before."

"He's...in mourning," the Galra explained, quite inadequately, Pidge thought. "See, we Galra, when we meet our soulmates, we are capable of developing a much more extreme version of that bond. When you think of your soulmate, for example, what do you feel?"

"...Kind of like a warm, bubbly feeling," Pidge frowned, thinking intently. "Vague, but there, I guess. I don't really notice it."

"For Galra, it's...much more intense," he sighed, raking a hand over the tuft of fur on top of his head. "When you lose your soulmate, it feels like so much more than just  _ half _ of you is ripped away -it feels like your  _ self _ getting ripped away, also. Most...don't actually live for very long after the experience."

Pidge whipped around to stare at Keith through the glass, as if she could force him to keep breathing through will alone. "But La- but he d-died...months ago…!"

"I suspect the only thing that had been keeping him going for so long was revenge," a new voice said from behind ber, and she turned.

"Oh...Kolivan, right?" Pidge turned back to Keith.

Hunk was in there with him, updating him on the news. "Revenge?"

"The burning urge to destroy the druid," Kolivan said, and crossed his arms beside her. "It is...a terrible fate, for one to lose one's soulmate so young."

"At this point, we're mostly just helping him pass in comfort," the medical Galra said.

"Wh- no!" Pidge exclaimed heatedly, scowling at him. "We- we can't just give up on him! He's not-" her voice broke, and she swallowed thickly. "He's not allowed to go too."

"I'm sorry, young paladin," Kolivan said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "He has been refusing all nutrients, and it would be more cruel to force him to stay alive when he so clearly doesn't want to be."

"You- you're  _ wrong _ !" Pidge yelled, shoving his hand away and storming off. None of them mentioned the tear tracks down her face.

~/\~

"Hey babe," someone said, too, too good to be true. Soft, warm fingers met his hair, ruffling it casually.

Keith's shoulders tightened; maybe if he didn't look, he wouldn't wake up, and he could stay asleep forever. He gripped his hair tight enough to hurt.

La- they hummed absently, shuffling, squirting what sounded like food go into two bowls.

"Cariño, what's up?"

God, he wished he were dead. That would be so much easier to deal with than- that whatever this was. Hallucinations? "Shut up."

"Keith, what the hell? I just wanna help-"

"I said shut  _ up _ !" Keith snapped, slamming back from the table. His chair hit the floor, reverberating loudly in the sudden silence. "Just- shut  _ up _ , okay, I know you're not really here, just be  _ quiet! _ "

And oh, god, he looked exactly like him, exactly what he remembered, fuck, he really was losing his mind, wasn't he?

Lance's blue eyes gleamed with light, with warmth, with sunshine and laughter and fluttering kisses and that thing in his chest that had been dead for so long, buried in rage and pain came to life again. It was all he could do to not fall to his knees at Lance's feet, to cover him in kisses, remember every touch that made him giggle and squeal and delight in every day.

Shit, maybe he really was dead.

_ Finally _ , something in him said, and he tried not to let it rise in his throat.

[(i can say i've really loved)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053183/chapters/44455450)

~/\~

Keith blinked himself slowly out of his stupor, staring up at one of his most favourite sights in the world.

"Oh, Keith, thank fuck," Lance sighed, kissing his knuckles where they were held in a too-tight grasp. " _ Dio _ , I was worried for a moment, you just  _ collapsed _ !"

"I...remembered something," Keith said, pushing himself slowly to a sitting position and rubbing at his forehead.

"Oh?" Lance frowned, carefully holding him upright. "What the fuck did you remember that made you go down like that? I thought you were about to have a  _ seizure _ ."

"You...remember that one time-traveller me, from months ago?" Keith asked, squinting at Lance.

"The one that clued us in on clone-Shiro?" Lance cocked his head to the side. "Yeah, what of it?"

"I think I just got his memories," Keith said, searching Lance's face like he might never see it again. "I- Lance, you have to promise me, you can't-" his voice broke, and he scrubbed his free hand across his face. "You're not allowed to die first," he finished, mumbling into his palm. "You can't, okay? Please."

"Dummy, you're not allowed to die first either!" Lance scowled, and his voice was only a little wobbly. "Fuck your promises, promises can be broken -you're just not allowed!"

Despite himself, Keith broke into wet laugher. That was so exactly like Lance, god. Take all the expectations and throw them straight out the window. "Guess we're gonna be living forever then," he said wetly, allowing Lance to pull him to his feet and hustle him down the hallway to the medical room for a check-in.

_ Deal _ , Lance thought, ringing loud and clear through their bond.

Keith chuckled again, scrubbing at one eye with a fist.

"What?" Lance glanced back, a somewhat puzzled expression on his face.

"I love you," Keith replied, "more than even I may ever know."

"Oh!" Lance flushed all the way to the tips of his ears, even as his mouth curved in a delighted little smile. "I love you too, even if you are weird and half-furry."

Keith burst out into laughter, and that was how they entered the medical ward, clinging to each other, laughing, and crying.


End file.
